Drove it home last night.
Details at 11.
Drove it home last night.
Details at 11.
I have been guilty of this so many times (current victim of an 08 F450 King Ranch under the knife). It will either be the best or worst of times. (also happily sold 97' gas powered f350 this past week) Big win! But please tell us more as I secretly love them all.
I badly want one of these.....
The story:
A friend of mine bought this truck about a year ago. He traded his NA Miata for it even up- which has to rank among the most hilarious trades of all time. In that year he put about 500 miles on it- mostly running to Home Depot and taking the family for rides on snowy days.
His wife once said of the truck, "It makes us about one Confederate Flag short of fitting in in this town"
Recently they decided to find a new home for the monster, as they just weren't using it all that much. Another friend of his had called first dibs, but decided to pass, so then I got a crack at it. We went up to visit them Friday night, ordered take-out sushi, test drove the truck, drank some beers, and eventually I wrote him a check for $2540: $2500 for the truck, and $40 for our portion of the sushi (we really like sushi). My wife drove our daughter and herself home in our 300TD, following me in the truck.
Well, trying to, anyway. 
It's a '93 (GMT400) dually crew cab with a 454 big block and a 5 speed NV4500 gearbox. Four (or would it be six?) wheel drive. Approximately 225,000 miles. Power windows, power mirrors, power locks, front buckets, and even working A/C. The 6 tires were put on by the guy my friend bought it from, and look brand new. My friend put in a new battery and did a full tune-up. There's no radio though...yet.
The best part? The truck spent the majority of it's life banging around our west. The carfax report (which hilariously shows me as the 11th or 12th owner) shows the truck making its way to PA from Nevada about the time when the last presidential election occurred. It has zero rust on the body, and the frame only has some minor surface rust just starting. The clearcoat is shot, but meh? That's just an excuse to go all roller with some Dupont Imron on it.
No accidents ever, almost no dents of any kind, and the interior is (mostly) still intact. Amazingly, it rides as well or better than my 2000 F350. The plan is to sell the F350 (PSD, 168,000 miles, in perfect working condition, just way more truck than I really need) and use the Chevy for the 2000-3000 miles a year that I tow, haul, and need to drive through urban war zones.
Nice snag. Here in Florida that would have become a mud truck already. Can't find them in that shape for that price :/
Nice! We rocked a NV4500 with our previous truck for 7 years. Great transmission.
Wow. Definitely a "friend deal". He probably could have gotten double that on the open market.
GMT-400 Duallie? Nice. Got a '98, extended-cab, long-bed duallie with the Vortec 350 and I love that truck.
My dad sure seems to love those trucks. He had a '98 3500, 6.5 diesel, 4 door, 4x4. Hauled countless round bales, a JD 450 dozer, and all kinds of random farm equipment on the 24' goose neck behind it. Even made a handful of family road trips in that thing.
He eventually blew up the 6.5, and took a gamble on an allegedly "rebuilt" eBay 6.5 replacement, it lasted about 2 weeks before something internal let go in it too. That truck has lived in the pasture for several years now.
Instead of finding something newer, he replaced that truck with an almost identical slightly older 454 gas burner.
The first one came with GM's famous, "paint peels of in sheets" feature. My first novice auto paint job was that truck, a few cans of Nason and a $40 CH HVLP gun.
A lot of memories from those trucks.
It's a non-Vortec 454, which makes something like 230 HP and 385 lb feet. The thing is, those 385 lb-ft come at 1400 RPM. I found that while the tach shows redline at 4500 RPM, there's really nothing there over about 3000. Which is fine; 3000 RPM in 5th gear is about 80 mph, which is faster than I'd ever want to drive this tank. Basically, it's a lot like driving my old 12V Cummins, only a lot smoother and about half the fuel economy.
I'm keeping my F350 until after the next LeMons race (don't want to tow 16 hours round trip with an untested truck) so that'll give me a month to do some catch-up maintenance on the dually and freshen up the interior.
great rig. the trans is worth half what you paid for the whole thing. the engine and tires cover the rest, and the rest of the truck was free
i love my 454tbi/5 speed truck, but it's a tad smaller than yours.
never had a single issue with my old 454 dually either when it came to weight and pulling things.
In reply to patgizz:
Thanks. I calculated I paid about 37 cents a pound for the truck. Definitely one of my cheaper $/lb purchases for a running, driving vehicle.
I never really wanted a dually, but this was too cheap to pass. When the tires wear out, I may remove the rear flares and convert it to a SRW, since I have no need for its "duallyness".
that would require a bed swap or new sides, the factory saws out the bed sides for tire clearance.
A truck in that shape is near unicorn status in my area. Dual wheels, big block AND rowing your own gears? So much want. When trucks were trucks.
In reply to volvoclearinghouse:
Tow with the duals before you decide to take them off. I never wanted a dually, until I towed with one. For large trailers, there is no comparison to a SRW. It's noticeable with the Alaskan camper loaded as well.
Toyman01 wrote: In reply to volvoclearinghouse: Tow with the duals before you decide to take them off. I never wanted a dually, until I towed with one. For large trailers, there is no comparison to a SRW. It's noticeable with the Alaskan camper loaded as well.
That truck will tow beautifully. I used a similar truck but with a 6.5 turbodiesel and it was a really nice long distance truck.
We need better pics!
Nice score.
Chrome wheels even
G_Body_Man wrote: We need better pics!
Forthcoming. I left my phone at home today by accident. 
This beast has probably burned 25,000 gallons of gas in it's lifetime 
In reply to 2002maniac:
Yeah, that's probably in the right ballpark. Of course, that's also over 23 years. Drive a 28 mpg car 30,000 miles per year and you'd burn about the same amount of fuel.
What gets me is people who spend $50,000 to buy something like this new, and then drive it mostly empty, to work. The reason I bought it is I did the math: my F350, which has a book around $12,500, gets driven by me about 3000 miles per year that I've owned it. At an average of 15mpg, that's 200 gallons of fuel per year. This truck will likely average 10 mpg, so 300 gallons. Even assuming diesel costs the same as gas, that's an additional $200 per year in fuel costs at current prices. Even if gas doubles in price, that's $400 more per year. How many years will I have to drive this thing to make up the $10,000 difference in FMV? And that's assuming nothing expensive breaks on the F350. If the 454 blows up, I can get a low-mileage replacement engine for $1000, and swap it myself. If the 7.3 blows up, I'm out 5k.
In the daylight.
Mmmmm...peeling clearcoat.
And..the plant:
Cool!! Flipped breather lid so you can hear how much gas it's burning.
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